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Oscar Night Suspense, Then Poof! Cable’s Back

There was buy an antenna. There was squeeze in front of the computer (really hard with 20 or 30 guests, and munchies). There was find a friend — any friend — in Manhattan. There was, alas, go to the in-laws.

These were among the viable choices — some not so bad and some pretty unfortunate — that the three million Cablevision customers in the New York area confronted on Sunday as they hastily weighed ways to watch the Academy Awards in an emergency. Given that WABC-TV, which was broadcasting the Oscars, had abruptly erased itself from Cablevision’s channel offerings at midnight in a nasty money squabble, the expected means of viewing the show seemed like it would no longer be an option.

The dispute between Cablevision and The Walt Disney Co., owner of WABC in New York, was centered on ABC’s effort to change the longstanding custom of cable providers’ paying nothing for traditional broadcast channels. Industry experts cautioned that this battle could augur similar fights with larger distributors.

After a day of brinksmanship, the two sides abruptly returned ABC to the air about 20 minutes into the Oscars broadcast — but well after scores of Cablevision subscribers in affected areas of New York, New Jersey Connecticut were sent scrambling. Some switched to Verizon FiOS or satellite providers, even if installers could not get there by Sunday night. Others headed for the nearest Wal-Mart or Target to buy that quaint device known as a TV antenna so they could pick up WABC through the air. For those with old TVs, this meant a digital converter box, too. At the Wal-Mart in Massapequa on Long Island, Musa Josany, the electronics manager, said customers began invading the antenna area Saturday night. By Sunday afternoon, there was little left to chose from.

Catherine Toth, 58, a Cablevision customer who lives in Copaigue, a few miles east of Massapequa, said she had always been a firm believer in being prepared for storms and hurricanes. As it happens, this made her equally well-equipped for TV-channel shutdowns. She owns a seven-inch battery-powered TV that gets the network channels. Her intention was to watch the Oscars on the miniature set, hoping not to murder her eyesight.

Bars throughout Cablevision territory had been promoting Oscar-watching parties, and they couldn’t just turn them into “Undercover Boss” or “Dog the Bounty Hunter” parties.

Photo

Ross Greenberg bought an adapter allowing him to transmit the Oscars from his computer to the TVs in his bar in Brooklyn.Credit
Julie Glassberg for The New York Times

Fortunately, many of the bars were unaffected because they relied on satellite dishes. Or, in the case of Pete’s Candy Store, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that was holding a Bavarian Oskar party, just a TV with an antenna. The bar doesn’t get cable.

The Oscar for Bad Timing, however, should go to Ross Greenberg. In January, he opened what he calls a sexy soccer bar, Woodwork, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The bar was outfitted with three 50-inch flat screens, and he began as a DirecTV customer. On Wednesday, he switched to — you guessed it — Cablevision.

Patrons had been promised an Oscar bash, starting at 7 p.m. With a few hours to go, he was still sweating it out. “We’re going to do everything in our power to watch the Oscars tonight,” he said, as he started listing some options — one more unlikely than the next. “We can stream it from the Internet. Is it on a Spanish channel?”

Then he had the idea of trying to reconnect the dormant DirecTV dish on the roof. But that made him nervous. So Matthew Pozzi, the co-owner, hurried over to the Apple store in SoHo and bought an adapter that allowed them to transmit the ceremony from Mr. Greenberg’s MacBook onto the three TVs.

Computers were going to be the solution for many other stranded Oscar viewers.

“No Channel 7 is no big deal,” said Carl Campagna, 50, from Bethpage on Long Island. Several Web sites promised live video streams of the Oscars, and by watching it that way, he said, “I don’t have to miss not one long speech or political commentary from the podium.”

Amy Giles of Huntington Station, N.Y., meanwhile, said she would be staying home from work Monday so that a Verizon FiOS technician could install her new TV service.

She had soured on Cablevision after it lost two cable channels, Food Network and HGTV, for much of January in a dispute over cable fees. And the advertising wars with Disney now had her feeling like she was “stuck at the kitchen table listening to Mom and Dad argue.”

Photo

The first 20 minutes of the Academy Awards on Sunday night appeared on the Times Square zipper, if not on Cablevision.Credit
Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

Others planned to lean heavily on friends, some of whom became much better friends than they were on Saturday, for no other reason than that they were Verizon or Time-Warner households. It didn’t even matter if they had a cheap set and stale pretzels.

Out of other options, some people drove as far as absolutely necessary to sit with the in-laws, hoping the show moved more briskly than normal.

And, of course, there were those Cablevision customers who in fact never intended to watch the Oscars or were perfectly capable of getting a full night’s sleep without knowing who won for best sound mixing.

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“I’m just going to wait this one out,” said Millie Menzel, 61, of Muttontown, on Long Island’s North Shore. “I’m not buying an antenna, and I’ll find out who wins the Oscars in the morning.”

For most of the day, Cablevision viewers who tuned to WABC were treated to a “customer alert” that gave Cablevision’s view of the dispute, as well as instructions on watching WABC with a digital antenna.

Where some suffer, others rejoice. Sara Benincasa, a 29-year-old comedian, was co-hosting an Oscar party at 92YTribeca in Manhattan, where the TVs were fed by satellite. Out of the Cablevision-ABC game of chicken, she saw the prospect of higher attendance. “I’m hoping that we’re able to welcome some Cablevision orphans into our comedic bosom,” she said. Ms. Benincasa, who had just bought a curve-hugging purple gown for the event, felt people would survive Oscar night, but worried about the week ahead. Things like “Lost” were on.

“The ‘Lost’ fans are crazy,” she said. “They will storm the headquarters of Cablevision. I am actually frightened for Cablevision employees, especially the C.E.O.”

As for her personal channel supplier, she has none. She doesn’t own a TV.

Angela Macropoulos and Karen Zraick contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on March 8, 2010, on Page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Oscar Night Suspense, Then Poof! Cable’s Back. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe